Investors, such as Microsoft’s
Bill Gates, are sitting on billions of dollars in losses after buying
into the corn-based ethanol industry that George W. Bush embraced as
the ans wer to US energy woes.

Six of the biggest publicly traded
US ethanol producers have lost more than $8.7bn in market value since
the peak of the boom in mid-2006 and the beginning of this month,
according to an analysis by the Financial Times. The boom followed a
2005 law requiring refiners to mix billions of gallons of the biofuel
with petrol. (source)